We begin on the role of middle east oil on american policy since the end of world war ii, American History tv, this weekend, every weekend, on cspan 3. Good morning. I name is al kose, im one of the volunteers here. Were going to talk about the american m4 medium tank. Probably one of the most prolific tanks of the Second World War. This particular example was one of the earlier versions. This is the m4a3 tank. This is armed with a 75 millimeter main gun. If we move to the commanders weapons station here, it also has the caliber 50 machine gun up top where the commander is. And it also has two m19, 1930 caliber machine guns. One is mounted with the main gun and the other is mounted here up in the front of the tank. And this one is manned by the battle gun. If you look at the battle gun, he can move it up and down. He can show you the way the ball turret works. This has the workings of the guns, his ammunition back there and a catch bag to catch the shell casings as they come out. If you look at the top of the hatch right over his right shoulder there, theres a parascope that goes in there. It fits up into that through that space and sticks up. And inside that parscope is a is a lens that has a rhett key largo in it. He uses that to fire the machine gun. Now this one here, theres another machine gun on this side, this is the other m1919. This is not with the main gun. This one is controlled by the gunner. He has some switchology in his cruise station, theres a switch to fire the gun, hes ranging that through a similar set up that you can see next to the helmet up there. His part comes up from the inside in the housing and thats how hes looking. One of the things you notice, because theyre looking through a parascope their field of vision is fairly limited. The critical thing for the commander was, when he identified the target he would have to lay that main again gun on the target such that the gunner could see it in his field of vision. In a typical fire command, the tank commander will announce the engagement and hes going to alert the gunner. Hell say gunner, the next thing hell do is announce the type of ammunition were going to fire. In the case of an enemy tank were going to fire steel piercing ammunition. While hes doing that, once that gun is laid where the gunner can pick it up in his sight, hell yell identified. The loader is now taking that shot round or the armor piercing round, loading it into the main gun, when he arms the main gun, takes it off safe, he will yell up and in the process the commander will make an estimation of range and in that fire command as soon as he gets it, he will announce a range to the enemy target. That was important in these tanks because there was no organic range in capacity on this tank, it was an estimate. Based on the estimated range of the target, the gunner will put the right sight for that range on the enemy target. That sounds complicated, but in the case of a good crew it would happen somewhere between four to six seconds to get a round off. Its happening very, very quickly. A lot of the training was geared towards developing the crew so they could get the round off quick quickly. This is a tank thats 75 years old. These days its different, we have laser finders, a laser beam goes down and back in milliseconds, that range is calculated and goes to the computers. So the target moving downrange, it factors that in. It was different for the soldiers that crewed these tanks in the world war. Most of the soldiers on these things were 17 to 20 years old that were armor crewmen during the Second World War. In fact, guys in the 24, 25 years old were old timers. And real old timers like me wouldnt have been on these things. But they were young men that did this. One of the important things about the Army Heritage center, this stuff is great for people to see and great to talk about. But the real focus of the Army HeritageEducation Center is the soldiers that served on these vehicles. And in the case of world war ii all over, they were first deployed in north africa, then the italian campaign, went into europe, had them in the south pacific. Thats the focal point is to convey the sacrifice of the soldiers who used these things. We use them to help convey the story to the visiting public. The sherman tank was one of the two more prolific tanks of the war in terms of numbers manufactured. The sherman series, there were over 49,500 of these tanks manufactured during the Second World War. The only production totals that exceeded this tank were the soviet t34 series. This series of tank was used by every one of the allied nations during the Second World War, to include england, the soviet union and even the nationalist chinese received sherman tacnks as a result of the lendlease programs. So it really had an effect on the war because of the numbers out there and the number of nations that used them. It had an operational rate of about 94 , in other words it was ready 94 of the time. As compared to some of the german tanks, which operational readiness rates hovered around 50 to 60 . So the tank was very, very reliable. This one has the earlier Suspension System. Its called the vvss suspension. Basically what that means is the shock absorbers are mounted vertically in these housings. The later Suspension System was the horizontal spring suspension, or the hvss, and the difference was the shock absorbers were mounted horizont horizontally. The later gave a better ride and equates to a better firing platform. As the tank is coming to a stop, you get a lot less roll back and forth. As we move around the tank, you notice all the equipment hanging on the outside. The tank has a crew of five. Up in the position by the caliber 50 machine gun you have the tank commander. Seated down inside the turret in front of him you have the gunner who operates and fires the main gun and also inside you have the loader, who loads the main gun as the name applies. Down in the hole you have two, you have the bowel gunner up here in the hole and to his left in that side of the hole you have the driver. You notice we have a lot of equipment on the outside of the tank. And the reason is those five soldiers lived in this thing essentially when they were in combat. It was important to keep the fighting compartment clear of equipment. So typically in combat youll see a tank arrayed with all sorts of things around the outside. If we move around the rear, we can take a look at the engine. This particular tank is powered by a ford gaa v8 engine. It was originally designed as an aircraft engine. Its aluminum block. There were a number of different configurations placed in these earlier in the war to include radials and diesels but this was probably the most common in the series throughout the war. Dual cams and cab raters, generates about 500 horsepower which moves this along at 30 to 35 miles per hour, terrain dependent. If we sneak around the back here, one of the grill doors is open. You can kind of get a peak inside, that shows you one of the two banks, its a v8, so four cylinders on each side. A very reliable engine. In this configuration, the engine is in the rear of the tank, a drive shaft goes up the length of the vehicle to the front. The advantage to this set up is, should either the engine or the transmission fail, its easier to replace it. A lot of the power plants were me mated so you had to pull the whole thing if a component broke. But these were easy to work on, which contributed to its reliabili reliability. The tank had a number of innovations that were unique during the Second World War. And one of those was the electro hydraulic turret. It does have power. It can be traversed manually but it does have a power system. Its electro hydraulic and it gives us the capability to rotate this turret 360 degrees in 18 seconds. That allows the crew to lay the main gun on target and move from target to target and engage those targets so that was a significant advantage. Another innovation was something called stabilization. It had stabilization in the vertical plane, which meant you could engage targets on the move, the gun will track up and down, that was really innovative. As we compare that tank, our m4 sherman to german thankanks, it could take the german tanks a minute to slew. So its a tremendous difference and gives an advantage in being able to engage targets. Infamously reliable. One of the earlier versions you see this armor plates, theres several of them, two on this side, one on the port side. This is where the ammunition was stored in the early makes. Not a good position. They realized it was vulnerable. They added these to help protect the ammunition. Early on, they debuted in north africa in british hands and developed a reputation of being death traps because of explosions. People contributed it to gasoline, it was actually the ammunition combusting when the hull was breached. Later versions they moved the ammunitions from the upper hull and put it in the lower hole, called wet storage tanks. The ammunition in the later versions is stored in a double walled metal box. Between the walls of those boxes is a solution of glycerin and water. Should the hull be breached in the area it lowers the temperature of the incoming round that the ammunition would no longer combust, and that improved survivability to about 70 . The sherman tank was a continual improvement throughout the war. It was designed in the 1930s, as they started to see the armored warfare on a grand scale, it was designed in the late 1930s. When it was designed, it was designed to go up against the german medium tanks, the main tanks of the day and was effective against those. As the war evolved new technologies came out in terms of the german vehicles that did challenge it quite a bit. But they continued to improve the tank throughout the war. This has the 75 millimeter. The later versions would field the 76 millimeter. And although that doesnt sound like much, it gave them capacity for high velocity ammunition. Which made it a lot more effective. One of the things i also like to point out about these is, is again the production volume, over 49,500 of this tank and variants produced. Comparatively, all of german armor production in the Second World War of everything they made was just about 49,000. And of the tiger and Panther Tanks that people hear about, there were 1660 tigers, and in the case of the panther just over 6600. So if you compare those numbers and the german armor production over 49,500 of this tank, you get an appreciation that this tank helped the war. When i asked my uncle about the tigers and panthers he said i never saw one, the only ones i saw were blown up on the side of the road. They were not necessarily that concerned about them. That said it was a great defensive tank. Youre coming across an open area and youre facing the tiger tank or the panther tank with their frontal army youre probably not going to have a good day. What that gave those tanks was something called standoff range. In other words they could effectively engage us before we could engage them. We had numbers on our side. A lot of people would point to the fact that it takes five shermans to take on a panther or tiger. What some of those folks overlook at our lowest level of organization in armored warfare was five tanks, that was the tank platoon, thats the way we ememploy ememploy employed them. With the speed of the tank, the ease of operation, ideally what a lot of tankers did in the Second World War was maneuver to a position of advantage over the panthers and tigers where their armor was weaker and could be breached. Easy to operate, easy to get a crew on and all in all a capable weapon system. Do you have any stories from your uncle . He had some interesting stories. Some of them he was reluctant to talk about. He served through the break out of the normandy campaign, the battle of the bulge. I had a number of photos that he left me. And some of them were fairly interesting. Theres a picture of his tank and crew with for some reason a base fiddle strapped to the side of the tank. Where they came up with a base fiddle and why someone had to take it with them, they had it strapped to the side of the tank. If you walk around here, you see we have weve got a case of wine bottles on the back here. Again, talking about soldier life on board these things, essentially the crews lived on these. So whenever they had an opportunity to get some fresh aids or perhaps a few bottles of wine, whatever, they were prone to grab that stuff and take it with them. Youll see our coffeepots there. And a lot of it was just that crew interaction and that was really the essence of being a tank crewman during the Second World War, they became a family. For this thing to run effectively, all five soldiers have to be on the same piece of musk. They have to Work Together to get it done. People dont realize the importance of the driver in these things. But if were moving across a piece of terrain and it comes time to engage the target, that driver has to be sensitive to fire command. What hes doing is bringing this tank to a stop and his ability to do that has a lot to do with our firing platform. They would develop a knack if they pulled back and braked this tank too quickly now the tank is rocking back and forth, so they would be keen to the fire command to and ease it into a position so when were ready to engage, hes giving us the most stable platform possible. The battle gunner, critical for the enemy personnel targets. This particular gun we talked about ranging a little bit. Ranging was an important part of getting steel on target. We could use this gun also to range. The battle gunner could use his sight to put rounds out and help estimate range should we need to do that. That was another way to range. The primary purpose was antipersonal of course. But the crew had to develop an affinity to Work Together. When these things were attacked successfully engaged, average loss was about 1 crewman. Every time we had a sherman hit we typically would lose one crewman, and it depended on where the sherman was engaged. In most cases the other three would get out. But in the aggregate, the survival rates for the crews was pretty good. A lot has been made to say that the whole crew would go up. There are cases of what we label catastrophic kill where the tank would combust and everybody would go up. But on average when the tank was successfully engaged by enemy vehicle we would lose one or two crewmen and the rest would get out. If you look at any photograph of crewmen during the Second World War, it would be tough to find any two of those soldiers in the same tank wearing the same thing. There was a lot of variety. Im wearing one of the early sets of cover alls, which was common for the crews. We have a gentleman up top wearing a model 41 jacket and then hes got a pair of trousers on, which would have been the basic combat uniform. But typically you see a lot of variety, from the coveralls to the twopiece uniform you see for soldiers. This is the armored crew helmets which were unique to Armored Vehicle operations in the Second World War. If youre familiar with football in the 1940s, they were designed by recaawlings, you could see t logo there. S it was a fiber shell on the outside, a leather liner. Offered no ballistic protection. It was just a crash helmet to protect your head in the vehicle. And most importantly it provided the communication gear that the crew would use to communicate inside the tank. That consistents of the headsets here, these go into communication boxes, five of those one for each of the crew position, that gives the crew the capability to talk to each other inside the tank so the driver could say go left or right, tell the gunners to engage targets or whatever. This would have been common for all armored crews in the Second World War. There were some other things available, depending upon the weather. There was a winter combat uniform that consisted of bibbed wool overalls and a special jacket. This is a actually the top for the winter combat uniform, commonly referred to as tanker jackets. Pockets, blanket lining in them. A lot of units were issued these, but they were really most common among the armored crews. As we move around the side here, we have some of the weapons that would have been common in the Armored Vehicles. Inside the Armored Vehicle, there were a couple types of sub machine guns that the crews were armed with if they had to get off the tank to set up a listening post, identify the enemy before they got close. This is an m 3 a 1, it was a 45 caliber machine gun. Very easy to mass produce these things. Essentially a series of stamped tubes. 45 caliber, fired the same type round as our mipistols. Each of the crewmen would have had one of these. Both this and the m3a1 or the grease gun as it was referred to would fire the same ammunition. And, of course, hand grenades p. A lot of stuff used by the infantry was used by the armored crews with special applications. If we walk around the side we can look at some of the other equipment we have. And youll see an array of tools, what a lot of folks dont realize is the tank crews spent more time maintaining these things than they did fighting on them. By their very nature they require a lot of maintenance. Among the things we would check on a routine basis was track tension because it does a couple things for you, it assists with maneuverability but most important it keeps the wheels on the line here. So the maintenance piece was a part of it. Virtually all the moving parts on this have to be grease routinely, to include rings and gas cans, obviously. This tank had a fuel capacity of about 264 gallons. It actually had four fuel tanks in it. Two on either side, two on the port side, two on the starboard side. It gives it a cruising range of 265 or so miles. In todays vernacular its common to hear miles per gallon in the case of these its gallons per mile. It had a cruising range of about 250 miles. We have the fuel cans here. As these things were refueled, it was not uncommon to have an entire battalion pulled over on the side of the road and have a whole fleet of trucks pull up alongside full of these fuel cans and transfer fuel from the cans onto the tank. Pretty common display. The insignia here is unique. The unit that we represent is the 68th tank battalion during the Second World War.